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Google Ads (Cohort Sync)

Send Amplitude cohorts to Google Ads to create audiences for personalized campaigns.

Considerations

  • Understand Predictive analytics and Behavioral Cohorts before setting up this integration.
  • You need a Google Ads account.
  • Identify an Amplitude user property that matches your user ID field in Google Ads.
  • Enable the integration per project.
  • It takes 6 to 48 hours for a list to populate with members. You'll most likely see an "In Progress" status in the Google Ads UI if you upload to an audience list more frequently than once every 12 hours.
  • Google requires an end-user consent signal on every upload before it matches users in the European Economic Area (EEA). Confirm the consent attestation on your sync so Amplitude can send that signal. Refer to End-user consent attestation.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, log in to your Google Ads account.

Set up the integration

Amplitude setup

  1. In Amplitude Data, click Catalog and select the Destinations tab.
  2. In the Cohort section, click Google Ads.
  3. Log into Google and grant Amplitude permission to manage your AdWords campaigns.
  4. Set up the fields Amplitude needs to start syncing to Google Ads. Google Ads supports three match types, known as the upload key type:

    • Contact Info: Matches on a user's email address. Phone number, first name, last name, country, and zip code are also supported but not recommended.

    • Mobile Advertising ID: Matches on IDFA and AAID mobile device IDs. Amplitude doesn't recommend using Amplitude's Device ID column because match rates may be low if Amplitude populates IDFV when AAID and IDFA aren't available. For more information, refer to Track unique users.

      You also need to define an App ID if you choose this upload key type. App ID is a string that uniquely identifies a mobile application from which the data was collected. For iOS, the ID string is the 9 digit string at the end of an App Store URL. For Android, the ID string is the application's package name. Define multiple App IDs for the same project to sync under different apps, then select which one to use at sync time.

      In Google, this value matches on the App ID or Device ID fields.

    • CRM ID: Matches on advertiser-generated and assigned User IDs to send into Amplitude. In Google, this value matches the User ID field.

Google requires you to send at least one uniquely identifiable key (like email or device ID) to Amplitude for this integration to work.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

To avoid sending PII to Amplitude, hash any email addresses with SHA-256 before passing them. Google has guidelines on the accepted format for emails before they're hashed. In Google, this value matches the Email field.

Since March 2024, Google's EU User Consent Policy requires a consent signal (ad_user_data and ad_personalization) on every Customer Match upload. Without it, Google silently excludes all EEA end users from matching: the upload still reports success, but EEA users never join the audience. This is the most common cause of low match rates for audiences with European users.When you create a Google Ads sync, or edit or resume an existing one, Amplitude displays a consent attestation checkbox. By confirming it, you attest that the users in the synced audiences have given the consent required under applicable law and Google's Customer Match policies, and you instruct Amplitude to signal that consent to Google on each upload for the sync. Amplitude records the date, the confirming user, and the version of the attestation text.

Keep the following in mind:

  • The attestation is optional. Without it, the sync runs normally but Amplitude sends no consent signal, and Google excludes EEA users from matching.
  • Responsibility for obtaining and maintaining end-user consent remains with you. Amplitude relays your attestation to Google; it doesn't collect consent from your users.
  • Amplitude asks you to confirm again if you materially change or re-enable the sync. Scheduled runs don't require re-confirmation.
  • This mirrors the attestation Google requires when you upload a customer list manually in Google Ads.

Low match rates with European users

If your audience includes EEA users and your match rate in Google Ads is low, open the sync's settings and confirm the consent attestation. Match rates typically recover on uploads after Google processes the change.

Send a cohort

Disable your browser ad blocker before you attempt these steps.

  1. In Amplitude, open the cohort you want to export.
  2. Click Sync, and choose Google Ads.
  3. Select the destination.
  4. Select the sync frequency you need.
  5. To include EEA users in matching, confirm the end-user consent attestation. Refer to End-user consent attestation.
  6. If you specified Mobile Advertising ID as the upload key type for your integration in this project, also select an app ID from the dropdown from the list you created at integration setup. To add another app ID, return to the integration setup page and add more.
  7. Save when finished.

In Google Ads you should see the cohort in the audience manager. Google may take six to twelve hours to populate the sync. For privacy purposes, the user list size shows as zero until the list has at least 1000 members. After that, the size rounds to the two most significant digits.

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